6.5.5 Energy and cost savings through use of the Integrated Design Process (IDP)

Despite the usefulness of supply curves for policy-making, the methods used to create them rarely consider buildings as integrated systems; instead, they focus on the energy savings potential of incremental improvements to individual energy-using devices. As demonstrated in the first part of this chapter, integrated building design not only can generate savings that are greater than achievable through individual measures, but can also improve cost-effectiveness. This suggests that studies relying solely on component estimates may underestimate the abatement potential or overestimate the costs, compared with a systems approach to building energy efficiency. Recent published analyses show that, with an integrated approach, (i) the cost of saving energy can go down as the amount of energy saved goes up, and (ii) highly energy-efficient buildings can cost less than buildings built according to standard practice (Harvey, 2006; Chapter 13).